Israel agrees to 12-hour Gaza ceasefire

Reuters: Siegfried Modola

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, heads a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem July 24, 2014.

3 hr ago By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Crispian Balmer of Reuters

UPDATE: JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has agreed to a 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire in fighting with militants in the Gaza Strip to start at 8 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT) on Saturday, a military spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said that during the brief truce, troops would keep searching for tunnels used by militants and that the military will "respond if terrorists choose to exploit this time to attack Israel Defense Forces personnel or fire at Israeli civilians."
"Gaza civilians who have been requested to vacate from their residents are to refrain from returning," the spokeswoman said.

EARLIER:
GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has rejected international proposals for a ceasefire in its fight against Islamist militants in Gaza, a government source said on Friday, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said no formal proposals had yet been put forward.
Mediators hope that a truce could come into force ahead of a Muslim festival that starts early next week, but they have struggled to resolve seemingly irreconcilable demands from Israel and Hamas-led fighters, locked in conflict since July 8.
As diplomacy faltered, the fighting raged on.
Gaza officials said Israeli strikes killed 55 people on Friday, including the head of media operations for Hamas ally Islamic Jihad and his son. They put the number of Palestinian deaths in 18 days of conflict at 844, most of them civilians.
Photos: Gaza offensive
Related: Hamas tunnel threat at center of war with Israel
Related: Israel to begin 12-hour pause in Gaza hostilities on Saturday: U.S. official
Militants fired a barrage of rockets out of Gaza, triggering sirens across much of southern and central Israel, including at the country's main airport. No injuries were reported, with the Iron Dome interceptor system knocking out many of the missiles.
Speaking in Cairo, Kerry told reporters that, although Israel may have rejected some language in a truce proposal draft, there "was no formal proposal, or final proposal, or proposal ready (for) a vote submitted to Israel".
The top U.S. diplomat said there were still disagreements on the terminology, but he was confident there was a framework that would ultimately succeed and that "serious progress" had been made, although there was more work to do.
The search for a breakthrough will continue in Paris on Saturday when France hosts diplomats from the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union, Turkey and Qatar, a French diplomatic source said.

"We are working toward a brief seven days of peace. Seven days of a humanitarian ceasefire in honour of Eid in order to be able to bring people together to try to work to create a more durable, sustainable ceasefire for the long (term)," Kerry said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking at the same news conference, threw his weight behind a seven-day humanitarian truce, saying it could start with an extendable 12-hour stoppage.
A U.S. official said later that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Kerry Israel would begin a 12-hour pause in Gaza hostilities starting at 7 a.m. Israeli time (0400 GMT) on Saturday. Israel did not comment on the report.

TUNNELS
Hamas, which wants an end to an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza before agreeing to halt hostilities, has yet to respond to the ceasefire proposition, which has not been made public. The Israeli source, who declined to be named, said Netanyahu's security cabinet had turned down the plan because it did not let Israel carry on hunting down Hamas's tunnel network that criss-crosses the Gaza border.
"Kerry's proposal leans (too much) towards Hamas's demands," said the source.
The Gaza turmoil has stoked tensions in the nearby occupied West Bank, where U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas governs in uneasy coordination with Israel.
Medics said six Palestinians were killed in separate incidents near the cities of Nablus and Hebron, including one shooting that witnesses blamed on an apparent Jewish settler.
On Thursday night, 10,000 demonstrators marched in solidarity with Gaza near the Palestinian administrative capital Ramallah - a scale recalling mass revolts of the past.
Protesters surged against an Israeli army checkpoint, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, and Palestinian medics said one was shot dead and 200 wounded when troops opened fire.
Israel said three more of its soldiers were killed in Gaza on Friday, bringing the army death toll to 35, as troops battled militants in the north, east and south of Gaza - a tiny Mediterranean enclave that is home to 1.8 million Palestinians.
It also announced that a soldier unaccounted for after an ambush in Gaza six days ago was definitely dead, although his body had not been recovered. Hamas said on Sunday it had captured the man, but did not release a photograph of him.
Three civilians have also been killed in Israel by rockets from Gaza - the kind of attack that surged last month amid Hamas anger at a crackdown on its activists in the West Bank, prompting the July 8 launch of the Israeli offensive.
The growing Israeli casualty list has only strengthened resolve in the country to pursue this latest campaign against Hamas until the group is significantly weakened.

NEGOTIATIONS
Kerry, based in neighbouring Egypt for much of the week, is seeking a limited humanitarian truce under which Palestinian movement would be freed up to allow in aid and for the dead and wounded to be recovered.
A Palestinian official close to the negotiations said Turkey and Qatar had proposed a seven-day halt to the fighting, which had been relayed to Israel by Kerry while Hamas considered it.
Israel insisted that, even if such a ceasefire was agreed, its army should continue destroying tunnels along Gaza's eastern frontier, a mission that could take between one and two weeks. A senior Israeli officer said troops had made progress.
"We have managed to locate and destroy about half, at least half, of the enemy's attack tunnels and we are continuing with determination," said Major-General Sammy Turgeman, the head of the army's southern command. "Every additional day's fighting will allow us to continue to damage this infrastructure more and more," he added. Netanyahu has said a truce should also lead to the eventual stripping of Gaza's rocket arsenals - something Hamas rules out.
"We must stop the rocket launches. How this is done - whether through occupying (Gaza), or broadening (the operation), or (international) guarantees, or anything else, I have to see it with my own eyes," said police minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch.
The rockets have sent Israelis regularly rushing to shelters and dented the economy despite Iron Dome's high rate of success.
A Hamas rocket intercepted near Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday prompted the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt American commercial flights to Israel's main international gateway. Some European carriers followed suit.
Jolted by the blow at the height of an already stagnant summer tourism season, Israel persuaded U.S. authorities to lift the flight ban on Thursday, after which the European aviation regulator removed its own advisory against flying to Ben Gurion.
In the second such salvo in as many days, Hamas said it fired three rockets at the airport on Friday, an apparent bid to cripple operations there again. There was no word of impacts at Ben Gurion, whose passenger hall emptied at the sound of sirens.

HAMAS WANTS GAZA OPENED UP
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal had on Wednesday voiced support for a humanitarian truce, but only if Israel eased restrictions on Gaza. Hamas wants Egypt to open up its border with Gaza, too, and demands that Israel release hundreds of prisoners rounded up in the West Bank last month following the kidnap and killing of three Jewish seminary students.
Such concessions appear unlikely, however, as both Israel and Egypt consider Hamas a security threat.
One Cairo official said next week's Eid al-Fitr festival, which concludes Ramadan, was a possible date for a truce. It was not immediately clear if Kerry, whose mediation has involved Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Abbas, would remain in Cairo.
On Thursday, a U.S. official said Kerry would not stay in the region "for an indefinite amount of time".
More than 160,000 Palestinians have been displaced in Gaza by the fighting, many of them seeking shelter in buildings run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) called on Friday for a humanitarian corridor to be set up in Gaza to allow aid workers to evacuate the wounded and bring in life-saving medicines.
"People are dying at an alarming rate, being injured at a very alarming rate," Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters.
(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Noah Browning in Gaza, Arshad Mohammed, Yasmine Saleh and Shadia Nasralla in Cairo; writing by Dan Williams and Crispian Balmer; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Gareth Jones)

What happened? The day Flight 17 was downed

AP Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky

Dutch investigators examine pieces of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the village of Rassipne, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Friday, July 25, 2014.

8 hr ago By YURAS KARMANAU of Associated Press

SNIZHNE, Ukraine (AP) — It was lunchtime when a tracked launcher with four SA-11 surface-to-air missiles rolled into town and parked on Karapetyan Street. Fifteen hundred miles to the west, passengers were checking in for Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

It had been a noisy day in this eastern Ukrainian town, residents recounted. Plenty of military equipment was moving through. But still it was hard to miss the bulky missile system, also known as a Buk M-1. It left deep tread marks in the asphalt as it rumbled by in a small convoy.
The vehicles stopped in front of journalists from The Associated Press. A man wearing unfamiliar fatigues, speaking with a distinctive Russian accent, checked to make sure they weren't filming. The convoy then moved on, destination unknown in the heart of eastern Ukraine's pro-Russia rebellion.
Three hours later, people six miles (10 kilometers) west of Snizhne heard loud noises.
And then they saw pieces of twisted metal — and bodies— fall from the sky.
The rebel leadership in Donetsk has repeatedly and publicly denied any responsibility for the downing of Flight 17.
Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for rebel leader Alexander Borodai, repeated to the AP on Friday that no rebel units had weapons capable of shooting that high, and said any suggestions to the contrary are part of an information war aimed at undermining the insurgents' cause.
Nevertheless, the denials are increasingly challenged by accounts of residents, the observations of journalists on the ground, and the statements of one rebel official. The Ukrainian government has also provided purported communications intercepts that it says show rebel involvement in the shoot-down.
A highly placed rebel, speaking to the AP this week, admitted that rebels were responsible. He said a unit based in the hometown of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, made up of both Russians and Ukrainians, was involved in the firing of an SA-11 from near Snizhne. The rebel, who has direct access to the inner circle of the insurgent leadership in Donetsk, said that he could not be named because he was contradicting the rebels' official line.
The rebels believed they were targeting a Ukrainian military plane, this person said. Instead, they hit the passenger jet flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 people aboard were killed.
Intercepted phone conversations released by the Ukrainian government appear to back up the contention they were unaware the aircraft was a passenger jet.
In those tapes, the first rebels to reach the scene can be heard swearing when they see the number of bodies and the insignia of Malaysia Airlines.
Ukraine immediately blamed the rebels for the shooting. In an interview in Kiev this week, the Ukrainian counterterrorism chief, Vitaly Nayda, gave the AP the government's version of the events of July 17. He said the account was based on information from intercepts, spies and resident tips.
Nayda laid the blame fully on Russia: He said the missile launcher came from Russia and was operated by Russians. The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday declined to comment on either charge. Moscow has continually denied involvement in the downing of the plane.
The rebel official who spoke to AP did not address the question of any Russian government involvement in the attack. U.S. officials have blamed Russia for creating the "conditions" for the downing of the plane, but have offered no evidence that the missile came from Russia or that Russia directly was involved.
According to Nayda, at 1 a.m. on July 17 the launcher rolled into Ukraine across the Russian border aboard a flatbed truck. He cited communications intercepts that he would not share with the AP. By 9 a.m., he said, the launcher had reached Donetsk, the main rebel stronghold 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the border. In Donetsk it is presumed to have been off-loaded from the flatbed and started to move in a convoy on its own.
Nayda said the Buk turned back east toward Snizhne. Townspeople who spoke to the AP said it rolled into Snizhne around lunchtime.
"On that day there was a lot of military equipment moving about in town," recalled Tatyana Germash, a 55-year-old accountant, interviewed Monday, four days after the attack.
Valery Sakharov, a 64-year-old retired miner, pointed out the spot where he saw the missile launcher.
"The Buk was parked on Karapetyan Street at midday, but later it left; I don't know where," he said. "Look — it even left marks on the asphalt."
Even before the plane was downed, the AP had reported on the presence of the missile launcher in the town July 17.
Here is what that dispatch said: "An Associated Press reporter on Thursday saw seven rebel-owned tanks parked at a gas station outside the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne. In the town, he also observed a Buk missile system, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet)."
AP journalists saw the Buk moving through town at 1:05 p.m. The vehicle, which carried four 18-foot (5.5-meter) missiles, was in a convoy with two civilian cars.
The convoy stopped. A man in sand-colored camouflage without identifying insignia — different from the green camouflage the rebels normally wear — approached the journalists. The man wanted to make sure they had not recorded any images of the missile launcher. Satisfied that they hadn't, the convoy moved on.
About three hours later, at 4:18 p.m., according to a recording from an intercepted phone call that has been released by Ukraine's government, the Buk's crew snapped to attention when a spotter called in a report of an incoming airplane.
"A bird is flying to you," the spotter tells the rebel, identified by the Ukrainians as Igor Bezler, an insurgent commander who the Ukrainian government asserts is also a Russian intelligence officer.
The man identified as Bezler responds: "Reconnaissance plane or a big one?"
"I can't see behind the clouds. Too high," the spotter replies.

AP Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky

Members of the OSCE mission in Ukraine examine pieces of the crashed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the village of Rassipne, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Friday, July 25, 2014.

The rebel official who spoke to the AP about the incident said that Bezler commanded another fighter, code-named Sapper, who was the ranking rebel officer with the missile launcher at the time.
According to the rebel official, Sapper led a rebel unit, about half of which was made up of men from far eastern Russia, many from the island of Sakhalin off Russia's Pacific coast.
Sapper is from the nearby town of Yenakiieve, he said. The town also happens to be the home of the former president, Yanukovych.
Sapper could not be reached for comment; his real identity is not known. Bezler, contacted on Friday by the AP, denied any connection to the attack on the plane. "I did not shoot down the Malaysia Airlines plane. I did not have the physical capabilities to do so," he declared.
According to the account of the rebel official, however, Sapper had been sent that day to inspect three checkpoints — in the towns of Debaltsevo, Chernukhino and Snizhne, all of which are within a 20-mile (30-kilometer) radius of where the plane went down. At some point in these travels, he joined up with the convoy accompanying the missile launch system.
At about 4:20 p.m., in the town of Torez, six miles (10 kilometers) west of Snizhne, residents heard loud noises. Some reported hearing two blasts, while others recall only one.
"I heard two powerful blasts in a row. First there was one, but then after a minute, a minute and a half, there was another discharge," said Rostislav Grishin, a 21-year-old prison guard. "I raised my head and within a minute I could see a plane falling through the clouds."
At 4:40 p.m., in another intercepted call released by Ukraine, the man identified as Bezler tells his own superior that the unit had shot down a plane.
"Just shot down a plane. It was Sapper's group. It went down beyond Yenakiieve," the man says.
While the authenticity of the intercept cannot be verified independently, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev said specialists in the intelligence community have deemed it authentic.
As for the Buk, Nayda said, intelligence suggests it went back on the move shortly after the attack.
That very night, he said, it crossed the border, back into Russia.
___
Leonard reported from Kiev. Other AP correspondents in eastern Ukraine assisted in this report.

US pulls Peace Corps volunteers from Kenya

Reuters: Siegfried Modola

Men accompany the police after an attack in Panda Nguo, Lamu County on the northern coast of Kenya July 11, 2014. Escalating violence in Kenya moved the US Peace Corps to pull out all volunteers in the country and suspend the program, an official statement said Thursday, July 24, 2014.

5 hr ago By JASON STRAZIUSO of Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The Peace Corps is suspending its programs in Kenya because of security concerns and is pulling more than 50 volunteers out of the country until threat levels decrease, the Peace Corps and State Department said Thursday.

A statement to The Associated Press from the State Department said that the Peace Corps "has been closely monitoring the security environment in Kenya ... and has decided to officially suspend the program in Kenya." The Peace Corps will monitor the security situation and determine when volunteers can return, it said.

The decision comes amid a tightening of security by the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, which has seen dozens of grenade and gunfire attacks the last two years. Earlier this year the U.S. increased the number of security personnel at the embassy and put armed Marines behind sandbag bunkers on the embassy roof. The State Department also reduced the number of U.S. personnel here by moving a regional USAID office out of the country.

The decision to suspend the Peace Corps program has been in the works for a while but was not announced publicly. U.S. warnings about the high risk of terror attacks in Kenya always ruffle the feathers of Kenyan leaders, and the State Department and Peace Corps statements underscored the long U.S.-Kenya relationship and the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. pours into Kenya every year.
But it was clear that given the grenade and gunfire assaults, as well as the massive attack on Westgate Mall last year that killed at least 67 people, the government felt that its Peace Corps volunteers — who live in far-flung villages with little security protection — were vulnerable.

Underscoring the danger of random violence, a police officer in the coastal town of Mombasa confirmed that a foreign woman had been shot and killed Thursday while walking the city streets, the second foreigner killed this month in the area.

Recent Peace Corps volunteers in Kenya said they felt the U.S. government program did a good job of keeping them updated about security, including the sending of security text messages, but they acknowledged that security was deteriorating.

"Some volunteers weren't very pleased with the level of security they provided, but I'm not sure what they were expecting. We don't have security guards to protect us, and it's Kenya, so sometimes bad things happen regardless of any preventative measures," said Nik Schuetz, a 28-year-old volunteer in Kenya from 2009-11 now studying at the University of Kansas.

The Peace Corps, which was founded in 1961 after the suggestion of then-Sen. John Kennedy, has some 7,000 volunteers in 65 countries working on education, health and environmental issues. Nearly 50 percent of the program's volunteers are in Africa. The program has had to pull volunteers out of dangerous situations before, including in Nepal in 2004 and in Kenya after the 2007-08 election violence. The Peace Corps also suspended its program in Ukraine in April.

Schuetz was initially placed in western Kenya with a public health program but his house was broken into and his belongings stolen, so the program moved him to another province, where he stayed for two years.
"They taught us to be smart about our surroundings and to trust the hairs on the back of our necks to sense whether it was a safe situation or not. And some things like bombings or grenade attacks, you just can't prepare for other than leaving the country," he said.

Anna Martin a Peace Corps volunteer in Busia, Kenya from 2010-12 who still lives in the country, said she always felt safe as a Peace Corps volunteer because the U.S. mission was "always making the best decisions regarding our safety and well-being."

"My opinion ... is that things just weren't getting better," said Martin. "Peace Corps had already taken measures to protect volunteers but had to ultimately make a bigger decision. And it a wise one."
At full strength the Peace Corps has had more than 125 volunteers in Kenya in recent years, and the pull-outs will hurt communities receiving American assistance. Shira Kramer, the spokeswoman for the Peace Corps, said the program hopes the volunteers can return "to support the country in meeting its development goals."

A third recent Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, Travis Axe, said there was no doubt that aid groups, schools and pharmacies would be negatively affected by the pull-out.

"Kenya is spearheading the growth and trends of so many sectors in East Africa; it is a shame to see such a wonderful program be cut from a country that has so much potential," he said.